


face down in a memory

by kadaransmuggler



Series: seven year ache [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Feelings, M/M, that's it that's this whole fic it's just feelings, this was very self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 16:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17881415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadaransmuggler/pseuds/kadaransmuggler
Summary: "Some things are worth shattering for and if he’d ever found anything worth it, it has to be this."





	face down in a memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scrumptiouslynervouscollector17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrumptiouslynervouscollector17/gifts).



The first time Eli falls in love, he thinks it might kill him. He’d never learned how to feel so much at once, fears it might shatter him (it’d be worth it, too, he thinks, and that scares him more than anything else). He had heard that falling in love happened slow, like wading in a pool. He feels as though he has been dragged to the depths of the ocean, feels like he’s suffocating. Feels like he wants it more than he wants air itself and  _ oh _ but that scares the hell out of him.

Their first kiss is a slow thing. Eli’s fingers carded through his hair, James’s hand cupping his cheek, eyelids fluttered shut. Soft and slow and hesitant and still Eli feels as though he’s been thrown from the balcony of the Lucky 38 (would it be so bad, he wonders, if this did kill him? some things are worth shattering for and if he’d ever found anything worth it, it has to be this). He blinks his eyes open, takes in the sunlight streaming through the windows and the soft, open warmth on James’s face. Panic flares in his stomach, heart beating against his ribcage like it wants to escape and all he can think about is how close this is to breaking him (he wants it, too, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life and it should scare him more than it does, the way he longs for James to take him apart piece by piece before putting him back together again). 

Eli does the only thing he’d ever learned how to do- he runs. 

* * *

James follows him because of course he does, that’s who he is, isn’t it? Someone who sees past the shaking hands and the snarled words, someone who sees through Courier Six to the man beneath the title (Eli doesn’t ever know how to feel about that, either, doesn’t even know if there’s anything left but Courier Six, thinks that maybe anything else was left in that grave in Goodsprings, thinks that maybe it’s best if it stays there but he’s so tired of having a number for a name. he’s tired of a lot of things these days.)  

He finds him outside the gate to Westside. He doesn’t say anything when he does, just comes to a stop next to him, movements slow and steady and careful because for all he loves Eli he knows he’s like a wild and wounded animal sometimes. Knows he might not be able to love it out of him, knows he’s going to try anyway. Eli shifts on his feet, half-turns to look at him as he stretches a shaking hand out to touch the gate (cobbled together from the ruins, just like Eli himself), and it’s all the acknowledgment James gets. 

Eli jerks his head once, sharply, and James follows him. They don’t make it far past the gate before Eli stops and looks around. James is close enough to him that he can feel the way the breath catches in his throat. He reaches out slow, a steadying hand on the small of his back, and Eli turns to look up at him for a moment before he lets the breath back out and steps forward. 

It doesn’t look the same. He didn’t know why he expected it to- it had been eleven years since he’d stepped foot in Westside and he reckons the people got tired of never having enough. There's crops growing amongst the ruined shells of the buildings and there’s pipes running water through the district and Eli wishes it’d been a little more like this when he’d lived here. He doesn’t linger to look, though. His eyes are on the alley at the end of the street, the one that leads in between the shell of a storefront and an old apartment building. James follows silent behind him and Eli almost hates how reassuring it is. 

He ducks into the alley and creeps along the wall until he reaches the old, rusted ladder. Old Lady Gibbs had made him promise never to try to climb it and all it had done was make Eli start breaking his promises early. All it does now is make Eli realize he never gave a damn about Gibbs. 

It’s easier to climb than he remembers. Easier to avoid the third rung from the bottom and the fourth from the top with his longer legs, easier to climb the ancient metal knowing James was down below to catch him if he fell. Easier when he knew the ladder wasn’t the scariest thing to fall from. 

And finally, he stands on the roof, out of breath, the wind buffeting him and the street a long way down. James follows moments later, effortlessly, and it’s one more thing Eli wishes he could hate. 

Everything is still there. The tarp he’d rigged up as a tent, the old tattered quilt that had belonged to Gibbs and the matching pillow, the floral print faded. The baby blanket Gibbs said he’d be found in. He stoops down, picking up the blanket and holding it in his hands. 

It had been all he had, once. 

James stands behind him, far enough away to give him the space he needs but close enough that he knows he isn’t alone. There’s still something kicking around in his ribcage that’s telling him to run to the edge of the horizon and beyond (it’s the first time he hasn’t tried to listen to it, too, and if things were a little different he’d elbow James all sly and slow and ask him what he was turning him into. but things weren’t different and Eli found he couldn’t joke, not now, not with everything bubbling to the surface, not when he felt so painfully raw and exposed). 

“I-I thought that it’d be different,” he breathes, fingers worrying at the frayed edges of the blanket. That was how it was supposed to go, wasn’t it? You couldn’t go home again, because you’d get there and find that while home might have stayed the same you hadn’t, so even when you were standing in the middle of it you were left with an aching heart beating stubbornly against your ribs.    


James doesn’t say anything, just steps closer and puts an arm around his shoulders. When Eli doesn’t shrug it off, he pulls him against his side, letting Eli tuck himself up against him. Eli doesn’t know why he feels like crying all of a sudden (doesn’t know what there’s to cry about, either, because he thought he was done feeling sorry for himself and the life he’d lived, thought he’d done enough by now to know he’d deserved it). 

He realizes, painfully, pressed up against James that he hadn’t changed. He had been fifteen when he left and he was just shy of thirty coming back and he hadn’t changed, just gotten meaner angrier, just gotten better at pretending he wasn’t still the same scared and lonely kid who stared at the stars and prayed for someone to find him. 

He remembers, suddenly, a time when he really thought it would work. Somewhere, somehow along the way he’d managed to lose the quiet hopefulness that had kept him alive (was this why he was so empty, dead and hollow inside, because the one thing that had mattered wasn’t there anymore?). He didn’t know how to bring it back, didn’t know if he could. 

He moves, suddenly, folding the blanket in his hands before putting it back under the tarp. He turns slow, puts a cautious hand on James’s chest, the other coming up to rest on his shoulder, curling into the space at the crook of his neck and splaying along the back of it. He can feel him breathe, like this, and all at once it reminds him that he isn’t alone. 

Eli pulls him down into a kiss. He’s used to kisses that bruise, that blur the boundary between fucking and fighting, because when he was with Benny sometimes he couldn’t tell a difference. This kiss is soft, melding against his sharp and jagged edges like it doesn’t even hurt. He hopes, violently and painfully, that it doesn’t- realizes in the span of a heartbeat that he had found something he loves too much to ruin. Panic makes him breathe in sharp spikes, but James runs his hands up his sides and Eli thinks if anything can hold him together it’d be him. 

He’s breathless when they break apart, James resting his forehead against Eli’s, eyes searching his face to see if he’s okay. Eli feels a rush of affection, fears for a moment that everything inside him is going to spill out onto the rooftop before it passes. He takes a breath, slow and steadying. “I want to stay here tonight,” he says, and James nods slow before kissing him again. "Whatever you want," he murmurs into the kiss, and Eli melts against him. 

That night, Eli lays on the old tattered quilt, tucked up against James’s side, and watches the stars. 

**Author's Note:**

> james belongs to @scrumptiouslynervouscollector17. i haven't introduced him in the rest of the series yet because this is so self-indulgent but 2019 is the year of self-indulgence so here we fuckin are kiddos 
> 
> as always, thanks so much for reading. comments are more than welcome and i do my best to reply to each one.


End file.
